Michael Landon Talked About HIs Dick a Lot On Set

As multiple tell-all memoirs and court cases have proven over the years, if it was a seemingly wholesome family television series in the 20th century, there was probably some weird shit going on behind the scenes. In the case of beloved ’70s series Little House on the Prairie, that mostly entailed star Michael Landon talking about his dick and having an affair with a teenage co-worker, according to the memoir of the woman who played Landon’s on-screen wife, actress Karen Grassle.

In her new memoir, Bright Lights, Prairie Dust: Life, Loss and Love from Little House’s Ma, Grassle recounts having to watch as her co-star discovered the wonders of natural Viagra, talked about it constantly, then proceeded to use his newfound virility to do the thing most aging men in a position of power are wont to do: have sex with a teen.

According to Grassle, Landon wouldn’t shut up about “the benefits of bee pollen for the aging male,” eagerly telling anyone on set who would listen about his dick’s mid-life, bee pollen-fueled renaissance. Unsurprisingly, Grassle, someone who seems to have a normal sense of healthy workplace boundaries, “didn’t want to think about his penis.” Unfortunately for Grassle and the rest of the Little House cast, they were all about to spend a lot more time thinking about the TV dad’s penis after he started putting it in their 18-year-old co-worker Cindy Clerico, a stand-in for co-star Melissa Francis, who played the Ingalls’s adopted daughter, Cassandra. It’s also worth noting that the 40-something Landon started doing this while still married to his non-teenage wife.

Listen, I’m not usually one to deny young women of consenting age their legal right to have sex with whoever the hell they want, and frankly, the world doesn’t need another diatribe on why adult men should probably avoid having sex with teenagers, even when those teenagers are technically of legal age. Men who find themselves in any position of power have always used that power to have sex with teens, and probably always will. I am, however, often surprised by how willing society has been to overlook such conduct, even in relatively recent history. These days, we at least try to muster some sense of public shock and outrage every time Scott Disick dumps an aging 20-something for a new sub-20-year-old girlfriend. But even just a few decades ago, it seems male celebrities were just routinely dating teens without so much as a slap on the wrist from the media. Landon certainly wasn’t the only TV star of his day hooking up with an 18-year-old. Speaking of which, this seems like a good time (because there’s rarely a bad time) to once again remind the public that a 37-year-old Jerry Seinfeld openly dated a high school student in the ’90s, and everyone pretty much just ignored it.

Anyway, the real moral of the story here is please don’t talk to your co-workers about your dick, and also maybe try not to have sex with them, especially if they’re teenagers.